The presently available vending machines for vending frozen products fall into two main types. The first type has a cabinet containing a plurality of racks each normally arranged to contain one product line and having a pusher or the like for dispensing a product from the rack upon selection of the desired product by a customer. In some cases, instead of using a pusher each rack may be an auger which rotates to move a product held therein into a delivery chute. This general type of machine is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 5,025,950 to Trouteaud et al. It will be appreciated that in this type of machine, the number of products held in each rack is fairly small and the product line is limited to a fairly specific size and shape to suit the rack. Furthermore, each rack requires an undesirably large space in order for the dispensing mechanisms to work effectively and the racks themselves must be contained in the freezer compartment which therefor must be undesirably large.
A second known type of vending machine includes a freezer cabinet which houses an extraction device arranged to extract a desired product from the freezer upon selection by a customer and dispense it via a dispensing chute. In such apparatus the extraction device typically includes a beam crane or gantry crane movable to any selected x, y co-ordinates within the cabinet whereupon a suction device supported by the crane moves down into a product compartment at the selected co-ordinates and attaches itself by suction to a product and then lifts it clear of the product compartment then the crane moves to a position above a dispensing chute and releases the selected product which slides down the chute for collection by the customer. In this type of machine the beam crane is typically moved by motor driven (closed loop) cables or rack and pinion devices. A variation on this type of vending machine is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,240,139 which describes a machine in which a beam crane is movable to any selected x, y co-ordinate above a chest freezer and also includes a mechanism for opening the door of the chest freezer so that a selected product can be extracted and then allows the door to close after the product has been extracted. It will be appreciated that in this machine, the extraction mechanism is housed outside the chest freezer and is not subject to the hostile environment of the other types mentioned and furthermore, the chest freezer can be almost fully allocated to product storage.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a vending machine which has at least some of the advantages proffered by the use of a chest freezer in a vending machine and to provide additional advantages arising from the use of a different extraction device.